


Johnny's Five Favorite Polaroids of Moira and One he Regrets not Having the Nerve to Take

by MachineGunBallet



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: F/M, Light Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 19:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19302727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MachineGunBallet/pseuds/MachineGunBallet
Summary: Johnny fancies himself a bit of a photographer. Inspired by the episode Moira's Nudes.





	Johnny's Five Favorite Polaroids of Moira and One he Regrets not Having the Nerve to Take

_Toronto, 1980_

He had known her for only a couple of weeks when he had decided to take her on a picnic and it became quickly apparent that it was a mistake. It should have been obvious to him that Moira wasn't the type of woman who would enjoy such a mundane outing (they weren't officially dating yet, that wouldn't happen for another six months) but he was just starting out with Rose Video (the store she had opened had been the fifth of what would become an empire of over 3000 and she was just a local theatre actress back then) and he didn't have a lot of money but he wanted to spend time with her, he had been completely transfixed by her beauty and her strangeness at the store opening and he had a niggling feeling that she was going to be more than just another conquest to him.

To her credit she didn't complain when, after telling her he had a surprise for her, he had pulled up at a park and retrieved a picnic basket from the trunk of the car but the look on her face was clear, this would not be something that would be happening again. 

He had fixed them a simple lunch, baguettes with brie, some potato salad, store-purchased donuts for desert and a cheap bottle of sparkling wine. Moira had been sitting on the grass (he had forgotten to pack a picnic blanket) picking at the potato salad, making small talk, when out of nowhere it had begun to rain, fat drops falling from the sky in dense sheets. He had fully expected Moira to get up and walk away, never to speak to him again but instead she had started laughing as the ground beneath them had turned to mud, ruining her pretty white dress. 

He had grabbed his camera and took the shot without her knowledge, her head thrown back, her mouth wide open, a rare moment of carefree abandon from a woman who has always needed to control her image and the way she presents herself to the world. 

_New York, 1982_

Moira made a beautiful bride. She wore a simple lace dress with long sleeves and a high neckline, her hair, permed and wild at the time tamed into an elegant chignon. She kept her makeup simple, her classic red lip and a softer eye than she usually wears. He had gasped when he first saw her on their wedding day. She wore a long tulle veil that hid her tears as she walked herself up the aisle, her parents having wanted nothing to do with wedding, or with her. They had never really understood her and the distance between them had only grown once she had left home. She has two bridesmaids but they are more close acquaintances than true friends, actresses on the soap opera she has landed a recurring role who are more interested in the publicity that being at the event will bring them (Rose Video had opened its 250th store the weekend before the wedding and there had been increasing media interest in his grassroots success story), than they were in Moira. She had recited her vows with a small, shaking voice, that sounded nothing like her own and it had suddenly occurred to him that he really had become her whole world, the only person who she could rely on and that even as they were reciting their vows, declaring their love for each other publicly, in front of God and World she was scared that he would leave her, just like everyone else in her life had. 

It wasn't until they were dancing at the reception that she had finally calmed down, after he had told her, repeatedly, that she didn't have to worry about him leaving, not now and not ever. One of the bridesmaids, he has long since forgotten her name, had taken a photo of them as the danced Moira completely relaxed against his strong, comforting body, smiling gently. The girl had slipped the photo to him as they had left the reception with a note, "love her as much as she loves you," it said.

He does. 

_Los Angeles, 1983_

They had been in Los Angeles for three weeks when Moira found out she was pregnant with David. Her stint in the soap opera in New York had generated serious interest in her as an actress and they had decided to move west to further her career. The timing of David's conception could not have been worse, Moira had just received a callback for a new nightime soap and Rose Video was expanding into the Midwest. 20 stores in Chicago and 10 each in Indianapolis, Minneapolis and St. Louis would be opening in the next three months requiring John to be on the road to oversee things. They had questioned whether it was the right time to have a child. Ultimately Moira was too Irish and too Catholic to make any other choice but Johnny knew that she resented the child growing within her for delaying her chance at stardom and for the illness he caused, she had been so ill in the first trimester of her pregnancy with David that she had lost 15 pounds. Her resentment had lasted until the day that David had started moving. He had come home to find Moira laying on the couch, her hand moving across her belly, chasing David's faint movements, the look on her face one of pure rapture. "Our son (they didn't know the gender until after he was born, ultrasound technology wasn't that advanced in 1983 but Moira had always referred to David in the masculine), is moving," she had said her voice barely above a whisper, like she was afraid if the baby heard he would stop. 

Before joining her on the couch he had grabbed his camera (he had always fancied himself a photographer) and snapped a quick shot.

"Please don't John-John," she had begged as the flash went off, she was so self-conscious of her body while she was pregnant with David but he didn't care, he wanted to capture this moment, the moment his wife had finally fallen in love with their son, who as inconvenient as his conception had been, he had loved from the very second he had found out about him. 

_Greece, 1987_

Rose video had boomed following David's birth. By early 1987 the 1000th store had opened in Edmonton and following the ribbon cutting (where Moira was the guest of honour, she hadn't started on Sunrise Bay yet but her star was rising rapidly) they headed to Greece for some R&R before pilot season and before Rose Video entered its next phase of expansion. 

David's nanny (they had found themselves with enough money to hire one just after his second birthday and it was a relief as David was a demanding child), had taken him to a local zoo for the day and he and Moira had found themselves with a rare moment of alone time together. He had walked in from the balcony of their hotel to find Moira laying naked on white silk sheets, her hair, styled at this point in long blonde curls fanned out of the pillow, her pale, milky skin glowing in the early afternoon light, "come here Mr. Rose," she had commanded him, they had spent the whole afternoon making love and just as the sun was setting, when the light was just right, he had taken a quick shot oh her laying on her side, a satisfied grin on her face. 

_Los Angeles, 1988_

Neither of the Rose children had made their entrances into the world the way he and Moira had planned. David was born early, his birth an emergency C-section in the middle of the night after Moira had started bleeding and Alexis was supposed to be born by C-section too, planned this time but had ended up being born naturally, coming so quickly that they had barely made it to the hospital after Moira's water had unexpectedly broken a week before the C-section was scheduled. 

Moira had been on Sunrise Bay little less than a year before Alexis was born and something had changed in her once she got the show. She had become more distant from both him and David, or maybe he had become more distant, he made the effort to go home and see Moira and David at least once a week while he was out on the road for work but he didn't feel the same connectedness and he missed it.

"I'm never doing that again," Moira had told him in no uncertain terms as she held her new daughter in her arms.

"You don't have to," he assured her, knowing his family was complete, one daughter and one son, he is a planner and that is what he had always planned for himself. 

"I love you Johnny Rose," she had responded tiredly as David's nanny walked into the room with him. 

"Come and meet you little sister," he had said lifting David up onto the bed. 

"She is all wrinkly, yuck," David had said and both he and Moira had laughed as the nanny snapped a picture of them. It was the most together the would be until Eli fleeced them and they had no choice but to move to Schitt's Creek.

_Schitt's Creek, 2016_

He had no idea, why of all the things he chose to pack when they had been forced out of their mansion he chose to take his old polaroid and a single pack of film, surely there were more important things that could have been packed but in the chaos of those 15 minutes he had, as he had been finding out in the year since they had arrived in town, gravitated towards the sentimental in his packing. The box of love letters from Moira, his camera, other worthless nicknacks that held no monetary value. 

Moira had just finished showering and she had walked into the room a towel on her head and a towel not fully covering her body talking animatedly about a proposal she had for the town council, he wasn't fully following her idea, something about public art, but he was enchanted by her as she moved about the room getting her pajamas out of a drawer and applying face cream, she was more animated than she had been in decades, more alive without the drugs and the alcohol numbing her, she hated Schitt's Creek, dreamt of getting out, he knew that, but he is thankful for this town, their saving grace in so much more than simple financial terms. It has given him the opportunity to get to know his two children and it has given him his wife back, bright and beautiful as she ever was.

He wanted to take a photograph of her as she buzzed about the room but he didn't didn't dare. It has been years since she has allowed anyone to capture her on film and he didn't want to be the cause of one of Moira's episodes so he just sat back on the bed and watched her, as captivated by her beauty and strangeness as he had been the day they met.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first Schitt's Creek fanfic I have ever written, I hope you enjoyed it and thanks to Open Fic Night for finally inspiring me to start writing Schitt's Creek fanfic instead of just thinking about it.


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